The Kite Runner – Chapter 23

The Kite Runner – Chapter 23

Key events:

·         Amir is in and out of consciousness realising his lip is split.

·         Amir has a vision of Baba wrestling the bear and realises that Amir is wrestling the bear.

·         Rahim Khan’s letter explaining how what he did was wrong but he must not be too hard on himself.

·         Amir discovers he is more like his Father than he thought and begins to learn that Baba redeemed himself by ‘ feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanidge, giving money to friends in need’. Through Rahim khans writing he inspires Amir that in order to redeem himself he must act upon it.

·         Amir discovers that the orphanidge in America was made-up.

How does Hosseini tell the story?

·         Using Amir’s injury’s to symbolise the atonement of not only Amir physically slowly healing but also slowly healing his wrongdoings showing the beginning of Amir’s journey of redeeming himself. Also the use of dialogue from the surrounding doctors emphasises this healing process both mentally and physically when he says (referring to Amir’s lip) ‘you will have an excellent result, though there will be a scar. That is unavoidable’

·         Narrative voices, replacing Amir’s voice (because he can’t physically speak without suffering) we get to observe the surroundings through multi-sensory description; referring to Amir’s physical suffering, and what he can see through his bruised eyes. Also through Rahim Khan’s letter Hosseini shows a great deal of foreshadowing through phrases such as ‘guilt leads to good’.

·         Hosseini manipulates time to signify importance of events through the use of Amir’s short bursts of consciousness, informing the reader only information they need to know without elaborating. He does this in short paragraphs, showing the fast flowing events that occur leading onto the following chapter.

·         There is a huge use of symbolism throughout both chapters 22 and 23. In chapter 23 Amir’s lip has great significance. Amir’s lip is split ‘in two, clean down the middle’ represents the split in afghan society. The social hierarchy that Amir was blissfully unaware arguably until Farid the taxi driver points out that afghan is split ‘in two’ and Amir has ‘always been a tourist’ to his own country. His country split into two sides, the rich and the poor. Amir is represented as the ‘socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited’ and Hassan, as well as Farid children representing the poor hazara’s ; who struggle work long physical days just to earn enough money to provide small amounts of food and no materialistic items that Amir was so used to growing up with.

The split lip also represents Baba’s emotional and moral characteristics towards his two sons and his role as a father being ‘torn between two half’s’ Amir and Hassan.

His split lip may also represent Amir’s symbol of atonement, symbolising that for the first time he stood up for his morals, for the last part of Hassan remaining- Sohrab. This scar will stay with him forever and is a turning point in the novel as from this point on he continues to redeem himself.